


Flashbacks and Shadows

by jazzypizzaz



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Gen, Growing Up, Misogyny, Terok Nor (Star Trek)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 19:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8635384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzypizzaz/pseuds/jazzypizzaz
Summary: Nog doesn’t want to make the same mistakes that his father made, that his uncle makes again and again.  A few scenes from Nog’s life growing up on Terok Nor that shaped his perception of relationships and love.  (A tangent based on my last Nog fic.)





	

 

**1.**

 

Years ago, when Nog as a child had mastered the ability to slip unobserved between the shadows of Terok Nor, he wandered into the bar far after hours, unable to sleep and with a vague notion to bask in the uncharacteristic peace of the quiet night.

 

While rooting under the counter for a Slug-o-Cola to filch, he heard two distinct voices making muffled sounds from the back storeroom.  He couldn’t pick out what was going on, but they sounded maybe distressed, so he stayed crouched where hopefully he would go unnoticed.

 

First a Cardassian strided out, loose-limbed and neck ridges flushed charcoal.   Nog recognized him as Gul Luvek, a jovial but dangerous man Gul Dukat had placed as an inside source on Odo’s squad of deputies and a regular customer at the bar.  Luvek stopped for a moment to look into the reflection of the viewscreen, adjusting the trousers of his uniform and running a hand through the ruffled strands of his hair, before exiting the bar, unaware of the watching child.

 

Quark walked out soon after.  He wiped his mouth with a handkerchief before freezing in place as he locked eyes with his hidden nephew.  A flash of shame burned through Nog.  At the time he hadn’t been sure why, only that something untoward and secret had happened between Quark and the Gul.

 

That moment of stalemate didn’t last long though before Quark unfroze and dragged Nog back to their quarters by a pinched ear, whispering harsh reprimands about being out of bed at night.  Neither of them ever spoke of the Gul.

 

The next day at the bar where anyone could hear him, Rom foolishly started assuaging the frantic worries of a Bajoran worker.  Apparently Quark had promised to sell her medicine, and she needed it  _ now _ , and no she couldn’t wait until the bar was less crowded.  

 

Nog whipped his head around to make sure no Cardassian officers were eavesdropping on his hapless father.  Luvek was at his usual table near the dabo games.  As Quark served the Gul a drink, both of them glanced over to where Rom was handing off the contraband medicine in plain sight of anyone paying attention.  

 

Nog’s heart raced with fear, but, strangely, Luvek appeared unconcerned.  The Gul shared a wink with Quark, and gave a quick pinch to Quark’s lobe.  Quark tensed in place, for hardly a second, then relaxed and smiled with what Nog recognized as his genial Customer Service look and continued on pouring drinks, while Duvek returned to watching the dabo girls spin the wheel with a slimy grin on his face.

 

Nog never forgot that night, and over the years, he observed carefully Quark’s interpersonal interactions, trying to figure out what went on behind closed doors -- the knowing wink of a shady figure with a sackful of latinum and promises, the unsettling smile of a gul as Quark leered into his personal space, the smirk Quark gave a business associate who just the previous day had threatened Quark for not paying back debts before he followed Quark to the back store room.  

 

(None of them lingered for long and none of them noticed the way Quark’s face pinched when they left, but Nog observed unseen, noting the patterns.)

 

It wasn’t until years later -- not until he overheard the dabo girls complaining about his uncle’s own unsavory requests of them -- before he would connect the dots.

 

**2.**

 

Nog was eight when he realized he might have a mother, somewhere.

 

He had been lurking on the Promenade, scoping out which passers-by had anything worth pickpocketing, when he saw Gul Dukat greeted by a gaggle of small well-fed Cardassian children.  One by one they shook his hand and he patted them on their heads, then the slender woman escorting them leaned over to kiss Dukat on the cheek.  Children were a rare sight on the station -- healthy happy-looking ones even more uncommon -- so Nog sidled up behind the group as they walked, ducking behind groups of Bajoran workers so that Dukat wouldn’t notice him.  

 

Eventually he got close enough to talk to one of the smaller ones lolly-gagging behind the rest.

 

“Hey, my name’s Nog.  Want to see something neat?”  Nog took out a strip of latinum he had filched from an unsuspecting glinn earlier, intending to impress the kid with a sleight of hand trick he had been practicing.

 

“My mommy says not to talk to alien scum,” the kid mumbled, glancing towards Dukat and the woman.

 

“That fe-male is your  _ mother? _  ” Nog said, forgetting his trick.  “My uncle says fe-males should be at home, not out in public.  She’s wearing… so many clothes, it’s disgusting.”

 

“Well I think  _ you’re  _ disgusting,” the kid whined, flicking out his tongue.  

 

Nog bared his teeth and gave a small hiss, and the kid flinched.  Served him right, but Nog immediately regretted it; there were almost never other kids around.  He spoke quickly, trying to make up for scaring off a potential friend.  

 

“Do you live on the station?  You’re lucky you met me -- I can show you all the best hiding spots on the station.  I have a couple bottles of Trixian bubble juice and a set of fizzbin in one of the jefferies tubes we can share.  Stick with me and I will make sure you are never bored -- ”

 

“I’m suppose to stay near my daddy at all times, and then I’m suppose to stay in our quarters, and  _ then  _ we get to leave this dirty place and go home.”

 

Nog, confused, looked around.  “Who’s your father?  I thought the fe-male was your parent.”

 

“They’re both my parents.  Duh.”  The kid tilted his head again towards Dukat and his mother up ahead and gave Nog a weird look.  “You’re not very smart, are you?  Probably _that’s_ why my mommy thinks you’re scum.”

 

Nog hissed again, getting up into the kid’s blubbering face, relishing that this whiny little brat was one of the only people Nog had met he could effectively loom over.  

 

“Daddy!” The kid screamed, bursting out into tears, but Nog scampered away before Dukat had any idea he was even there.

 

\-------

 

Back at the bar, Nog handed his dad a coil wrench to recalibrate the replicator.  “Do I have a mother?”

 

Rom, whose head was stuck up inside the device, dropped the sonic wrench he was holding and banged his forehead.  As Rom howled in sudden pain, Quark hustled over to hiss at him.

 

“ _ Quiet _ ! __ Rom, stop that racket.  Our customers come here to relax, not listen to your whining.”

 

“Sorry brother, but Nog --” Rom, still whimpering, glanced nervously at Nog, but Quark cut him off.

 

“What  _ about  _ Nog?  What kind of trouble has he got himself into now?”  Quark snapped.

 

“I only asked if I had a mother,” Nog spoke up.

 

“A  _ what _ ?” Quark squawked.

 

Rom, who was still rubbing his wounded head mournfully, started whimpering again, but this time not in response to his physical pain.

 

“I was just asking…” Nog mumbled.

 

Quark clucked his tongue at Nog and dragged him towards the bar counter by his lobe.  Nog yelped in pain.  “You don’t have a mother; you’re stuck with only that idiot father of yours.  And me, as long as you can earn your keep.  Now, stop asking silly questions and take this tray to table four.”  

 

Quark pushed him off with a tray of kanar, and Nog’s curiosity was left by the wayside with the hustle bustle of bar business.

 

**3.**

 

It wasn’t until Nog was ten or so that the subject came up again.

 

It began one day with Quark humming happily, in a rare good mood as he chatted amiably with a Cardassian female at the counter.  He had been seeing her a lot lately, bustling over to serve her first even when guls slammed their glasses down in impatience.

 

This was rarely a good sign -- usually cheerfulness meant Quark was getting his hopes up about a business connection that would inevitably explode into a horrendous mess, like a dropped glass bottle of kanar on the hard station floor.  Nog admired his Quark’s lobes for business, sure, but his uncle had the worst luck, and Nog had learned to be wary.  This didn’t mean that Nog wouldn’t take advantage of his uncle’s distraction for his own benefit, however.

 

With his uncle preoccupied, Nog was able to slip out of the bar early to pack up Quark’s belongings from their shared family quarters -- a task Quark had unreasonably ordered him to do while still scheduling Nog for full shifts as a busboy.  Nog hoped that if he stayed out of sight, then his uncle wouldn’t notice he was gone, and he wouldn’t be called upon to wait tables.  Cardassians were mean, and when around them Nog had to spend his time biting his tongue at their rude comments, or else risk getting in trouble.  The quiet simple orderliness of packing up was a walk in the Divine Treasury by comparison.

 

Not sticking around to overhear their conversations meant Nog didn’t catch on to the nature of Quark’s relationship to the female or the reason Quark was moving out to his own quarters, until later that night.

 

“That delectable female Natima can’t get enough of me!  You’ll understand when you’re older,” Quark had said, patting Nog on the head, before exiting their room with his belongings piled high on a serving cart.

 

“And I get to be the boss in my own home for once!”  Rom said, flopping onto the couch, a giddy grin on his face.  

 

Nog frowned, as he of course would still be on the bottom rung of their family hierarchy.  His reservations were soon confirmed:

 

“Aaaaaaand that means now  _ you’re _ in charge of keeping our quarters clean,” Rom continued, crunching into a platter of mudbugs and scattering the discarded carcasses across the coffee table as he sucked clean the juices of their insides.

 

Quark still scheduled Nog to work full time at the bar, despite his newfound cheerfulness, so Nog then had to sacrifice an extra hour of sleep to clear up all the detritus his slobby father somehow managed to dredge up every night.  Why oh why was it so difficult to put dishes back in the replicator when one was done?  How did Rom manage to dump half the contents of his closet on the floor every morning while dressing for the day?  Why, since they lived together now,  couldn’t Quark spend less time flirting with Natima at the bar so that Nog could catch a break more than for fifteen minutes a shift?

 

Quark with his lovesick grin and tingling lobes was happy; Rom with his newfound respite from Quark’s overbearing nature was happy; Nog, however, was not.  Stupid females only made Nog’s life more miserable.

 

Grumbling under his breath, Nog reorganized Rom’s closet in the vain hope that if he had a color coordination system for his boots, then Rom would less likely to strew them about the room haphazardly, when he came across a battered holo-photo projector he had never seen before.

 

Turning the device on, the photo revealed his father -- joyful and young in a way Nog had rarely seen -- gazing with adoration at a guarded, meek-looking Ferengi female.  

 

_ I know her _ , Nog thought, not sure where the certainty came from.   _ I know her, but she doesn’t know me. _

 

Nog wasn’t sure what it was -- the curve of her lobes, the hidden hint of steel in her eyes, her tense smile -- but something about her caused his stomach to drop, his chest to tighten suddenly, so that, dumbfounded, all he could do was sit down on the ground, breathless.

 

This was her.  It had to be.

 

It was then that Quark stomped in, raincloud storming over his head.  “Rom!  Where are you Rom… Can you believe -- ?  After all we had together, this this this unbearable, ridge-necked  _ female _ has the audacity to get mad at  _ me _ .  I didn’t even do anything wrong!  Well what did she expect!  Of course I’ll skim off a little extra profit; I’m a  _ Ferengi _ , not like the lobes don’t give that away.  I can’t win, I just can’t win.  Rom?  Are you here Rom?”  

 

Quark’s voice raised in pitch as he griped, until he became almost hysterical, but he cut off immediately upon stepping into the bedroom.

 

“Is this -- is this my mother?” Nog said, showing his uncle the photo, his voice strangely choked.

 

Nog looked up at Quark, and Quark’s panicked scowl softened into something almost approaching gentleness.  Quark glanced from the holo-photo back to Nog’s face, the two of them silent, then sat down next to Nog and shut off the device.  

 

“Love will only destroy you Nog, don’t do it.”   Quark’s voice was bitter, but his arm around Nog’s shoulders was comforting.  

 

“It is her isn’t it.  Where is she, Uncle Quark?”

 

“Your father married this female, and look at him now lobes-deep in debt because of her, a pathetic profitless Ferengi.  You’ve got your whole future ahead of you, and you don’t want to screw it up like him.  If a pretty someone wants to stroke your lobes, don’t get attached, it only leads to pain.  Remember to get something else out of it for yourself first.  The only important thing is profit, you understand?”

 

Nog nodded slowly, aware that Quark was mostly talking about himself at this point, but tucking the “advice” away for later anyway.  

 

Quark smiled, warm and fond, then kissed Nog on the forehead and gently took the holo-photo from him.  “You’re a good kid.  Learn from me, and you’re gonna go far.  We’ll all live together on a moon one day, mark my words.”

 

\--------

 

Nog was a kid who lurked in the corners, observing the the luckless endeavors of his uncle and father from a careful distance --  the cruelness of the Cardassians in their reign of terror over the station; the hypocrisy of his uncle’s advice as over and over again he fell in and out of love fast as the spin of a dabo wheel; the doggedness of his kowtowing father in hoping desperately for a little respect but with his lobeless naivete never quite gaining it.

 

Nog as a kid lived in the liminal space of shadows -- taking note of his surroundings, but holding himself separate and apart, vowing to one day be different than his often unfortunate heartbroken family, to find a way out of the strange dark loneliness of Terok Nor.  

 

\--------

 

And then, one day, the Federation takes over his home, renaming it Deep Space Nine.  They’re full of nonsensical idealism, but they flood the dingy station with bright lights and the bubbly sweetness of root beer and the shining optimism of opportunity.  

 

Nog meets his first real friend in the heart of the station commander’s son, and with the steadfastness of this love Nog steps out of the shadows and into the light, ready to forge his own path.


End file.
